


Thinking About Blue Skies

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Altered Timelines, Alternate Universe, Angst, BAMF Allison Argent, F/F, Hunters & Hunting, Laura is just as damaged as Derek is, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-09 19:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12282633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: The world is in shades of grey until you first touch your soulmate.Laura Hale gets her colors during a fight for her life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 6 of LHAW, Looking Through Her Eyes! (get it? with the seeing colors? the soulmate thing? it's all about seeing what she sees and the colors and shit? it's a clever use of the prompt, i swear.) it's only the first chapter because i am very busy lately and have no concept of time management, and also this fic got longer than i expected it to so i just didn't have a chance to finish it T_T
> 
>  **A few notes for the AU set up here:** the Hale fire still happened and all the Derek/Kate backstory is the same, but Peter was killed after he got to Kate. A different, unrelated alpha bit Victoria, but she still killed herself to avoid turning. Allison is aged up some, so she was like 14 when the fire happened but still 16 when her mom died/when she was supposed to have taken over the family. She's around 20 now, with Laura about 24. none of them ever went back to Beacon Hills, that place is entirely irrelevant, lol.

The first burst of purple was followed so closely by pain that Laura almost thought they were one and the same. It wasn’t until the green of the forest floor rushed up to meet her and the blue of the sky rolled overhead that she realized.

She didn’t have time to process though, not when a heeled boot was whistling through the air toward her head. It was caught by someone else—Derek, it had to be Derek, everyone else in the clearing wanted them both dead—and she had a precious second to regain her feet. Her hair fell in her face, a curtain of brown now where it had always been shades of grey before, and she pushed it away just as the sharp crack of a gunshot echoed off the trees.

Derek yelled, and for the first time, Laura saw red.

Her roar drowned out the shouts of all five hunters around them, one even dropping his knife in favor of covering his ears. Before they could regroup, Laura had her brother’s hand in hers and they were running, sprinting toward the treeline as bullets whizzed over their heads.

Laura glanced back. She got one more glimpse of a purple blouse, pale pink cheeks, and waves of long dark hair just before the forest closed in behind them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Derek was still bleeding when they made it back to the motel. It wasn’t wolfsbane at least, so small mercies. The bullet was just lodged in his side, shifting around with every movement and preventing the wound from closing. He bit down on his own arm as Laura dug it out with her claws, sinking fangs deep into the muscle to keep from screaming and alerting the motel’s management.

Blood was so red. Laura had seen plenty of blood in her lifetime, far more than she wished she had, but she’d had no idea that it looked like this: darker the deeper into the abdominal cavity it was, brighter in the light, turning brown at the edges as it dried. So many different shades of one color, so much more variation than the dull spectrum of greys.

“Are you okay?”

Laura’s head snapped up to see Derek watching her, eyebrows furrowed in concern. She must have been distracted for longer than she’d realized. Derek was still laid out on the bed, panting as his side slowly knitted together. Laura hurriedly pulled the scratchy comforter up from the end of the bed, heedless of how bloody her hands were considering the mess they’d already made, and tucked it in around him. He rolled his eyes but didn’t protest.

“Hey,” he said instead. “You sure there’s nothing wrong? Did you hit your head or something? You look a little out of it.”

“I’m fine, cub,” she said. “Totally fine. You just get some sleep.”

He looked far from convinced. Not that that was surprising; they knew each other too well. They’d been living in each other’s pockets for years by now, watching each other’s backs, keeping each other safe, clinging to each other harder than was probably healthy, but no one could really begrudge them that. Normally Laura was grateful for how easily Derek could read her. It meant that she didn’t have to explain her thoughts, that he knew when she needed support and when she needed space, that one look was enough to communicate an entire conversation’s worth of words.

Unfortunately, now it meant that he saw everywhere her eyes lingered, arrested by every flash of color she had never seen before.

She almost told him. He knew something was up, that much was obvious, and it wasn’t like it was Laura’s _fault_ or anything. She wouldn’t be confessing to some crime or sin. It happened all the time and no one had control over it. But how could she admit that she’d gotten her colors during a fight for her life? How could she tell him that her soulmate was a hunter?

“Laura—” Derek started to say, but he cut himself off with a sigh. One more long look, weary and resigned in a way someone so young should never have cause to be, and he said, “You get some rest too, okay?”

“Of course, baby bro.”

She smoothed his hair back off his forehead with the cleaner of her hands and he leaned into the soft touch. Then he caught her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. After a quick stop in the questionably sanitary bathroom to rinse off, Laura laid herself out on the other small bed. One last whispered goodnight to her brother and she clicked off the lamp even though it was barely 8pm, but she knew better than to think she would sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nighttime was comfortingly familiar. The darkness dulled everything until she could almost pretend she hadn’t gotten her colors at all. But then a car would drive past outside the window and splash everything with gold—beige wallpaper, green landscape painting, brown carpet, blue duvet—and she couldn’t help but chase after that.

Colors were beautiful. Not that she hadn’t found beauty in the world before, but greyscale was nothing compared to the rainbow. There was a reason getting your colors was supposed to be a joyous occasion, something to celebrate and luxuriate in. Something wonderful to share with your soulmate and experience together.

That wouldn’t happen with Laura. For one, she didn’t even know who her soulmate was.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Laura knew that she was either an Argent or one of their lackeys. She was a hunter, an enemy. Laura didn’t even know why she was surprised because this was just her luck. She had spent her entire childhood dreaming about finding her soulmate, and it turned out to be yet another big cosmic joke. Maybe it was karma. Maybe she was supposed to have died in the flames with everyone else and this was the universe’s way of getting back at her for dodging that bullet.

She listened to Derek’s breathing, slow and even, no hitch of pain; his wound had finished healing then. That should’ve been enough for Laura to relax, to let go of the fear that had her every muscle clenched tight, but it was never enough. What did it matter that they could heal when they would just keep being hurt? How long would it be before she lost him too?

There was a gentle thump of footsteps from outside. Normally that wouldn’t have been cause for alarm, but these ones stopped directly in front of their door instead of moving on down the line. With another glance at the lump of her sleeping brother, Laura slid out of bed. She could hear a heartbeat through the wood, just one, quick but steady. Whoever it was, they didn’t knock.

Cautiously, Laura raised herself up to the peephole.

There was purple. And she’d only ever seen purple once before.

She yanked open the door so fast the hinges almost gave out and closed it just as quickly behind her, only not slamming it in the hopes that Derek would sleep through this. The woman in front of her took a step back, but she didn’t jump or stumble. Her heart rate barely spiked at all, even when Laura bared sharp teeth in a snarl. She just raised her hands in front of her, palms out.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said lowly.

“Bullshit,” Laura growled. “You were plenty up for hurting us earlier.”

“That was—” The woman’s jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin line. Her wide eyes darted across Laura’s face, examining her. “—before.”

“You shouldn’t have come here, hunter,” Laura said, staunchly ignoring the complicated punch in the gut it was to have confirmation that this was her soulmate, to see this woman staring at her so wonderingly. It wasn’t _her_ the hunter was awestruck by, it was just the colors.

Brown eyes met hers, sharp and narrowed now. “My _name,_ ” the woman said, “is Allison.”

This time the growl was completely involuntary, forced out of Laura by instinct alone.

“ _Argent,_ ” she said, slurring around the fangs that itched to sink into flesh and tear. Of all the people she could’ve had for a soulmate, it had to be the fucking Argent princess, the scion of the most dangerous hunting family in the country.

Allison stepped back again, but only a bit, hands coming up higher in their placating gesture.

“I told you I’m not here to fight,” she said again.

“Then why are you here?” Laura demanded.

“I got my colors,” Allison said boldly, head high. “I know you did too. That makes you my—”

Laura had to laugh. “Oh please! As if that changes anything. It doesn’t make me not a werewolf. And it doesn’t make you not a murderer.”

 _That_ got Allison heart rate up. Her hands came down to her sides, balling into fists, and her pretty face collapsed into an ugly scowl. She bit out, “I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“And we all deserve it, right?” Laura asked. “We’re monsters. We’re dangerous by nature. Safer to just put us down now before we inevitably lose control.”

“You do all lose control,” Allison shot back. “Eventually.”

“Oh sweetheart, you have no idea how much self-control I’m showing by not tearing your throat out here and now,” Laura said. “No one on the planet has better control of themselves than an alpha werewolf.”

“Tell that to the one that killed my mother,” Allison sneered. “And the one that killed my aunt. Werewolves killed half my family.”

Laura’s eyes flared red before she could stop them. She was up in Allison’s face in the space of one heartbeat to the next, teeth bared as she said, “And hunters killed all of mine!”

Allison stood her ground, but only just, the sourness of fear on her skin even as she stood toe to toe with Laura. There was a flush to her cheeks, rosy pink on porcelain, but that was nothing compared to the scent of gunpowder and steel that surrounded her. Every deep breath Laura took to calm herself only filled her lungs with more of that scent, an aura of lethality that she knew would follow Allison no matter where she went, too deeply embedded to escape.

“In there,” Laura said, her voice low and steady even as the finger she pointed behind her shook, “is my little brother. The only person I have left in this world. And I’ll be _damned_ if I put him in danger for the likes of _you._ Joke of a soulmate or not.”

Allison’s eyes flicked over Laura’s shoulder to the motel room door, just for a second before returning to her, and that was all it took to make up Laura’s mind.

“Get out of here, hunter,” she said with all the force of her alpha spark behind it. “And don’t come back.”

She didn’t give Allison a chance to respond before she was closing the door in her face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Laura waited, breath held, until she heard the clip of Allison’s footsteps fade. Then she let her forehead collide with the door with a thump, suddenly too exhausted to hold her head up anymore. It felt like every part of her was trembling and ready to collapse and she sort of wanted to cry but there was no way she was going to let that happen. She would not cry over a hunter she didn’t even know.

A rustle of fabric startled her. She spun around to find Derek sitting up in his bed, shoulders hunched and eyes on the bedspread in front of him. Slowly, he looked up at her, and Laura’s held breath escaped her in a heavy sigh.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asked without much hope.

“Why did you let her go?”

Laura frowned. “I didn’t want her here,” she said. “I _don’t_ want her here.”

“She’s your soulmate,” Derek said.

“She’s a _hunter,_ ” Laura reminded him. “And we all know what happens when we make the mistake of trusting hunters.”

Derek flinched back like he’d been hit. Part of Laura felt bad for bringing that up, for waving it in his face when she knew how much the guilt ate away at him, but the rest of her thought it was pretty warranted. The fact remained that getting romantically invested in a hunter—an _Argent—_ was what had gotten everyone they loved slaughtered. They had to have learned that lesson by now.

But Derek didn’t stay hunched in on himself for long. Instead he shoved the covers back and stood to face her, though it took him an extra second or two to look her in the eye.

“It’s not the same,” he said. “She wasn’t— Kate wasn’t my soulmate. She was just—”

“She was playing you,” Laura snapped. “And it was easy, Derek, because you were young and sweet and trusting. But we don’t have the luxury of being that naive again.”

Derek clenched his jaw, his scent spiking with pain and grief, but he didn’t back down.

“It’s not naive to trust your soulmate,” he insisted. “You got your colors, Laura! You can’t _fake_ that. There’s no way it could be a trick or manipulation. Don’t you see? This is different.”

“Not different enough.”

Laura turned her head away so she didn’t have to see the way his face shut down. She wished she could turn off her other senses too, block out the smell of his frustration, the heaviness of his breathing. But she could only sit down on the shitty motel bed with her back to him, digging her fingers into the plasticky duvet, and pray that this was one of the times he would give her space.

It was a long time before he moved, unending seconds filled with nothing but heartbeats and unspoken words. The blankets on the other bed rustled as he sank down on them, but Laura didn’t move.

Finally, so quietly Laura would’ve missed it if she were human, Derek said, “You can’t just let this slip through your fingers.”

The sting of tears in her eyes caught Laura by surprise. She squeezed her eyes shut tight to keep them from falling.

“We leave first thing in the morning,” she said, as firmly as she could manage when it felt like she had no air in her lungs. “We keep heading west.”

She laid down and pulled the covers up over her head, but she never heard Derek do the same.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek didn’t reopen the argument the next morning, and Laura wasn’t sure if it was because he had given up on convincing her or if he was just giving her the silent treatment. It was really hard to tell with him sometimes. Either way she decided to consider it a blessing. She didn’t think she could stand much more debate on the subject.

There wasn’t much to talk about anyway. They didn’t need to pack, since they hadn’t had much of anything to unpack in the first place. All they had to do was tidy up the room, remove every trace of themselves that they could, check out of the motel, and load up the Camaro. It was a routine they knew like the back of their hands by now and they didn’t need words to get it done. The two of them were in the car and on the road well before noon. They’d have gotten started sooner, but Laura had opted to let Derek sleep in a little; he needed the rest after a wound like yesterday’s.

Before they reached the outskirts of town, Laura pulled into the parking lot of a Waffle House—the sign for which was almost _painfully_ yellow. Honestly, Laura wasn’t entirely sure she liked that color. But, while rest was good for healing injuries, food was better, and neither of them had had much to eat the day before considering they’d gotten jumped before dinner and gone straight to sleep after escaping. Her own stomach was rumbling by now, so Derek’s hunger had to be edging on painful.

Their breakfast was quiet and abnormally uncomfortable for them. Laura fidgeted with her fork and watched Derek studiously not look at her, unable to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t somehow lead back to their fight. In the end she just stayed silent too and hoped this would blow over. Surely in a few days Derek would have forgotten all about their brief run-in with her unfortunate soulmate and then they could move on with their lives. It wasn’t like they were ever going to see her again.

Unless, of course, she was waiting for them in the parking lot.

Allison was wearing blue jeans and a brown jacket, her hands stuffed in the pockets as she leaned against the wall just outside the restaurant door. Laura caught a whiff of her scent just as the door opened, but it wasn’t enough of a warning to stop them from almost running right into her. Like the night before, Allison didn’t startle or back away or show any sign that she knew her presence wasn’t welcome, despite the fact that Laura had made it _very clear_ that it was definitely unwelcome. It wasn’t easy to hold back her growl.

“What are you doing here?” Laura hissed, instinctively blocking the door with her arm to stop Derek from coming through.

“Don’t go west,” Allison said in lieu of an answer.

“Who said we were going west?” Derek asked from over Laura’s shoulder, because apparently he couldn’t take the hint that she wanted him to stay back, to stay as far away from this woman as Laura could possibly get him.

Allison gave him a flat look. “You were already driving west through town. This road feeds directly onto the freeway.” She shifted her gaze back to Laura, meeting her eye directly. “You need to reroute. Go back south and loop around the edge of town if you’re really set on heading west.”

“And why would we do that? How did you even find us here?” Laura asked, part of her wondering why she was even bothering to ask. If she was smart, she would be raking her claws across Allison’s throat and being done with it. That was the safest thing to do in this situation. Instead she was standing around talking.

And also blocking the door. Laura and Derek had to shift aside to let a family of four file out behind them. The little girl waved up at them as they passed and Allison waved back, a bright pink-lipped smile pressing dimples into her cheeks. As soon as the girl was out of sight though, Allison’s face was grim and unreadable again.

“I found you because I followed you here,” she said plainly.

Laura scoffed. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Allison said, unimpressed. “I’m a hunter with extensive training in how to track supernatural creatures without being detected. I’m damn good at it, which is why I was assigned to track you down and keep you in sight. But it’s not me you need to be worried about, it’s my grandfather.”

A chill tripped down Laura’s spine, Derek tensing up at her side. The Argent patriarch hadn’t been present at the skirmish in the forest the day before, but that hardly mattered. Gerard Argent was the fucking monster under the bed for werewolves, a name they’d grown up knowing and fearing. He was ruthless, merciless, and completely devoid of any reason where non-humans were concerned. But then again, that could be said of most of the Argents, including the one in front of them.

“You’ve openly admitted to killing people like us,” Laura said, “and yet you expect us _not_ to worry about you?”

“I’ve told you before, I’m not here to hurt you,” Allison said through gritted teeth. “Right now, I’m actually risking my ass to warn you. Don’t go west.”

“And why the fuck shouldn’t we?” Laura asked.

“Because Gerard and my dad have that whole quadrant staked out,” Allison told her. “There’s someone waiting on every westward road out of the city. I’m telling you: if you want to stay alive, take another route.”

Laura shook her head disbelievingly. “As if we can believe anything you say.”

“Laura,” Derek said under his breath, uncertainty coloring his tone, but Laura shot him a quelling look. He looked like he might flout the implicit order and argue, but after a long moment of teeth-grinding, he looked away. It was as much of a concession as she was likely to get. She turned her attention back to Allison.

“I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule of killing my kind in order to give us this helpful bit of advice,” she said, smooth and wholly insincere. “And if I wanted to drive directly into the barrel of a gun, I might even take it. But I’m not that stupid. So if you don’t mind, we’re going to be on our way now. Hope you understand if I don’t wish you a good day.”

Derek took the cue this time and made for the car, head down and jaw clenched, without protest. Laura moved in that direction as well, but she waited until Derek was safely inside the vehicle before turning around, knowing better than to take her eyes off a hunter when her packmate was vulnerable. As soon as she did, though, Allison’s hand was on her arm, firm and restraining. Laura couldn’t help the way her eyes flashed.

Allison didn’t let go. No matter that Laura could shake her off with ease—and break every bone in her hand just as easily—she held on tight and said, “You know, you’re not exactly what I was expecting either.”

Laura almost rolled her eyes, but there was a pang in her chest all the same, a tiny flare of hurt that she refused to acknowledge. She bared her teeth instead.

Allison ignored her. “But we don’t get to choose our soulmate,” she went on. “They’re chosen for us. And I don’t know about you, but I think that means something.”

“Take your hand off of me,” Laura said, slow and deliberate.

“Don’t go west,” Allison said, in much the same tone. “Please.”

Laura’s next “ _Off,_ ” was a snarl and, after one more very tense moment, Allison’s fingers released their grip on her forearm. “Just stay away from us,” Laura spat out, yanking open the door to the Camaro. She fell heavily into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and locked it for good measure. By the time she peeled out of the parking lot, Allison was gone from her rearview mirror.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“We shouldn’t go west.”

Laura shot a surprised look at Derek, who was slouched low in the passenger seat with his arms crossed over his chest. His stance may have seemed unconcerned, even casual to people who didn’t know him, but the way his eyes raked restlessly across the scenery flying past the window told a different story. The jumpiness, the tightness of his shoulders, the hint of claws biting into his jacket sleeves—it all spoke of worry, of fear.

“You believe her,” Laura said disbelievingly. “You actually believe her.”

“Of course I do,” Derek snapped. “And you should too.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Laura, she’s your _soulmate!_ ” Derek said. “People don’t just find their soulmate and then immediately try to kill them. That’s not how it works.”

“That’s absolutely how it works when your soulmate is a psycho bigot who kills your kind for a living,” Laura said. “She’s an _Argent,_ Derek. That whole family is homicidally insane. Her aunt is the one who—”

“Jesus, Laur, I know that,” Derek said, uncrossing his arms so he could scrub both hands over his face. “Do you think I don’t fucking know that? But Allison is your soulmate and she’s trying to help, and going against her family to do it.”

“We have no evidence to back that up and no reason to believe it,” Laura said. “Hunters lie, they manipulate, they will use any means necessary to get you in their sights. If she wants us to go one way, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that way will get us killed.”

“Then let’s just go another way,” Derek said with an expansive wave of his hand. “Believe it or not, there are actually four cardinal directions to choose from. She said don’t go west like we were going to. You’re saying we can’t go south like she suggested. Let’s fucking go north then, or east, I don’t care!”

“If you don’t care, then we’re going west,” Laura said stubbornly and Derek let out a strangled noise of aggravation. Laura just tightened her grip on the steering wheel, watching the street signs flash by them. There was no way she was letting Allison fucking Argent tell her what to do. She was _not_ going to fall for that bullshit. She was going to—

The first bullet clipped the right hand side mirror, shattering it and sending shards of glass clattering against Derek’s window. He jerked back on reflex, cursing, and Laura spun the wheel hard the other way. It was a good thing there was no one else on the road because the car skidded and fishtailed before gaining the traction to actually turn. More bullets thunked into the driver’s side back door as they shot off down a smaller side road, and then there was a hiss of pressurized air. That and the abrupt jerking of the car told them a tire had been hit.

Laura cursed too, far more creatively than her brother. A glance in the rearview mirror showed two black SUVs, both with rifles bristling from the windows. They were gaining and, with the Camaro on three wheels, gaining fast. With a cringe and a hasty apology to the poor Camaro, Laura gunned it and sent the vehicle squealing lopsidedly around the next corner, and then another as soon as she could.

When a backwards look showed no one immediately on their ass, Laura figured it was likely the only opportunity they would get. Derek bit out another curse as she slammed on the brakes, holding on white-knuckled to the door handle.

“Out,” Laura barked. “Out, out, out. We can outrun them, but only if we don’t have to stay on the road.”

Derek made a wordless noise of protest that Laura couldn’t blame him for—the Camaro had been with them from day one, they had driven away from the smoking wreckage of their old life in that car—but he threw open the door anyway. Laura followed suit, taking just a second to press the lock button and slam the door closed behind her on the slim chance that the hunters wouldn’t be bothered with breaking in and they could come back to find it later.

Then they were off running. This side of town was mostly industrial, lots of factories and storage units instead of the residences and popular storefronts that made up the rest of the city, which is why they had chosen to go out this way in the first place. While this wasn’t exactly what they had been planning for, it worked in their favor now anyway. With no witnesses around, the two of them were free to employ all the speed and strength and agility at their disposal. They ran on all fours, leapt over fences, propelled off of walls to push themselves higher and faster.

It wasn’t enough. By the time they reached the end of the road, there were two more SUVs rounding the corner there, bullets already flying. At least two of the guns Laura could see looked like sniper rifles, the long distance sort that could easily pick them off of rooftops.

“We need cover,” she said as they scrambled to change directions at the last possible second.

“Alley, there!”

Derek had caught sight of a gap between warehouses, too small for the bulky armored vehicles to follow them into. The hunters didn’t let that deter them though. Laura could hear the slamming of doors, voices shouting instructions, the clink of ammunition as the hunters reloaded their numerous guns. _Goddamn it,_ that was a lot of guns.

The alley was tight and smelled strongly of rotting garbage, the ground still damp and puddle-spotted from whenever it had rained last, and every sound echoed off the high walls. At first glance she thought that it was a dead end, that they had made a horrible tactical mistake and were actually going to die here. Her heart dropped into her gut as she backpedalled to avoid colliding with solid concrete, but just as she reached that back wall, a flurry of movement and color came flying around the blind corner to their left.

“ _Get down!_ ”

Before Laura could fully register Allison’s command, Derek had her by the shoulders and was dragging her into a crouch. There was a twang, a whistle, and then a _bang._ A minor explosion that left her ears ringing, and a flash of light that nearly blinded her even when she was facing the opposite direction. She barely heard Derek’s pained whimper right by her ear, and frankly, it was entirely possible that she had made the same noise. Rubbing frantically at her eyes worked just fine to clear the spots from her vision, but it did nothing for the ringing in her ears.

She heard it well enough, though, when Allison said, “What did I tell you?”

Allison was standing tall in front of them with a bow in her hand, another arrow nocked and ready. As Laura watched, she let it fly. This was a regular one, thankfully, instead of another flash-bang, but there was still a distinct cry of pain as it found its mark in the leg of one of the hunters at the mouth of the alley.

“I _told you_ not to go west,” Allison answered her own rhetorical question, drawing another arrow from the quiver on her back and taking aim. “And what did you do? You went west!” She fired, prompting another shout. “Why do I get the feeling that tells me everything I need to know about you as a person?”

Laura might have responded to that—how, she wasn’t quite sure yet—but a bullet embedded itself in the concrete above her head and what came out of her mouth instead was, “Is now really the time?”

Allison ignored her. She drew another arrow, this one with a larger head, and said, “Cover your ears.”

Both werewolves did so immediately, but even that wasn’t enough to block out the awful noise. Laura didn’t hear the next thing Allison said, but she did feel Allison’s hand around her wrist. The hunter had a hold of Derek too, dragging them both around the corner into an even smaller passageway made smaller yet by a rusty green-ish dumpster stuffed haphazardly near the end.  They half-ran and half-stumbled down it, still a little dizzy and off balance, until they reached the alley mouth and Allison threw out an arm to stop them in their tracks. She leaned out of the opening into the next street and drew back at once.

“More of Gerard’s men, 11 o’clock,” she breathed out. “I don’t have enough arrows to pick them off.”

“Could we distract them somehow?” Derek asked her readily. “Use one of those exploding arrows to draw their attention elsewhere?”

“They’re looking for werewolves, not IEDs,” Laura pointed out. “They won’t care about that when they’re hunting us.”

“She’s right,” Allison said briskly. “What we need is another w—”

The sound of footsteps reached them, at least a half dozen people coming their way and fast. Laura hardly had time to bare her claws and teeth, slipping into a fighting stance that she knew wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good against ranged weapons like guns, before men were spilling into view. At the head of the charge was a tall, fit, middle-aged man with a salt and pepper beard who said Allison’s name.

Allison, for the first time since joining the fray, hesitated.

“Dad,” she said cautiously, though the tip of her arrow dipped just the slightest bit from its ready position. “They’re innocents. They haven’t broken the Code.”

“Allison, honey,” the man, Chris Argent, said. “Come back from there. Think about what you’re doing.”

“The right thing,” Allison declared, drawing a chorus of shocked noises from the other hunters. Laura too was taken aback enough to pull her gaze away from the threat, taking in the way Allison’s head was held high and her shoulders thrown back. She had sounded utterly confident, and there had been no stutter in her heartbeat.

“Get outta the way before you get yourself hurt, little lady,” one of the other hunters called, wagging his gun at her.

A growl forced its way past Laura’s teeth, her hackles raising before she even realized it. She had the absurd urge to step in front of Allison, to shield her from the threat. But she held herself back, if for no other reason than that Allison didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. She just shot the man a withering look, her arrow coming back up to firing height, but he wasn’t the one she addressed. It was her father.

“The Argent Code says that only those who have hurt or killed innocent humans deserve execution,” she said. “These two have done no such thing. By the Code, we are obligated to let them go free.”

“You know Gerard isn’t going to let that happen,” Argent said, his face giving no indication of his own thoughts on the matter. “Come back now and there won’t be any consequences. He doesn’t need to know about this.”

“No,” Allison said. “I’m not standing down.”

The hunter with the big mouth made a noise of disgust. He brandished his gun again and said, “If you don’t stand with your men, then you get put down with the dogs!”

Vicious snarls rumbled through the alley, not only from Laura but from Derek too. Suddenly he was right there, planting himself in front of Allison like Laura had thought to do a moment ago, blocking the hunter’s aim. He roared, loud enough to shake the walls, and his eyes glowed electric blue. Laura heard the click of a chambering round, then several things happened at once. A bullet left the chamber, Laura lunged for the nearest raised gun, Allison shouted Derek’s name, and Derek hit the ground hard.

The cold metal of the rifle barrel crumpled under Laura’s fingers and the hunter cursed as she yanked it from his grip. A sheen of red overlaid Laura’s vision, a constant growl in the back of her throat and claws poised to strike. They would have fallen on the man’s throat, would have slashed and cut until he was no longer a threat, but a noise from behind her made her blood run cold: a strangled sound of pain, not from Derek, but from Allison.

Allison was standing in the same place Derek had been—the place she had pushed him out of when she saw the shot coming. Her bow hung loose from one hand and the other was clutched at her side, dark wetness blooming from under her fingers to spread across the brown of her jacket. She looked up and met Laura’s eyes, her own wide and shellshocked. And then she swayed.

A booted foot collided with Laura’s ribs hard, knocking the held breath from her lungs, and she was forced to drag her attention back to the immediate enemy. One good punch had him laid out, but there were five more behind him. A few had retreated further down the alley to take advantage of the distance their guns afforded them, putting themselves out of range of Laura’s claws and superior strength. Argent was yelling, shouting his daughter’s name, ordering the men to stop shooting, but no one was listening to him.

A bullet clipped Laura in the shoulder, white hot pain jolting through her. But worse than that, the impact of it spun her around just in time to see Allison fall. Derek caught her on the way to the ground, alarm clear on his face even as he ducked another shot, flinching away from the dust and debris that rained down on his back.

They needed cover. Really, they needed a way out and to safety, but they would never have time to figure one out when they were being shot at, so for now they needed cover.

Ignoring the burn in her damaged shoulder, Laura took hold of the dumpster and _pulled,_ dragging one corner of it away from the wall with a metallic shrieking and a shower of sparks. the next hail of bullets clanged into the face of it and ricocheted, echoing like some nightmare parody of church bells, but the makeshift blockade was sturdy enough for them to take refuge in the leeway.

Laura dropped to her knees beside Derek. Before she could think about it, she was already reaching out to Allison. Whether she had intended to put pressure on the wound or just take hold of Allison’s hand, Laura honestly wasn’t sure. All she knew was that Allison had just taken a bullet to protect her brother, had faced off with her own men and fought against them. Allison had told them the truth, and Laura didn’t know what to think of that. She pulled her hand back at the last second, swallowing hard against the knot in her throat.

“We need to get her out of here,” Derek said urgently. “She’s bleeding a lot.”

“We’re boxed in,” Allison reminded them, trying to pull herself into a sitting position. The attempt failed and she collapsed back against Derek’s shoulder with a gasp. “Gerard’s in the street. He’s got twice as many men as this.”

Derek looked to Laura, waiting for his alpha’s orders. A flare of panic sparked in Laura’s chest like it always did when he looked at her like that, so trusting and full of faith, but she stamped it down. She couldn’t afford to feel like that, not when Derek was counting on her, and now Allison too. Long gone were the days when she could howl for her mother, curl up in her alpha’s lap and pass off the difficult decisions to someone more capable. It was all on Laura now, and she had to get them out of this.

She cast her gaze around them, looking for anything they could use, anywhere they could go. There was nothing in the alley, just tall, smooth concrete walls and a bunch of garbage in a rusty bin. Past the mouth of the alley to their back, all she saw was normal street devoid of cars, but if she listened she could hear other voices nearby, the rumble of engines, the clatter of yet more ammunition. Beyond that—

“There,” Laura said, pointing to the far side of the street directly across from them, past where the hunters were assembling just out of sight. A sturdy old truck was parked in front of a squat building that was squeezed between two taller ones, the rooftop largely obscured and shielded by its neighbors. “From the truck to the roof and over the back. Can you make it?”

Derek examined the distance critically and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good. Can you make it carrying her?” Laura asked, nodding to Allison.

Derek looked back at her in surprised; as the alpha, Laura was the stronger of the two of them. Usually, when something heavy needed carrying but they had to run, Laura was the one to carry it. It was just more efficient. But, seeing that Laura’s question had been a genuine one, he obediently eyed the path again, re-evaluating.

“With a running start,” he decided. “Why? What are you going to be doing?”

“Drawing fire,” Laura said grimly.

“What?” Allison said, sounding horrified. “No! You can’t—”

Derek started to protest too, but Laura cut him off.

“You need to get Allison out of here,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I will be right behind you, but I can hold them off for a minute or two. Trust me, cub, this is the only way.”

Derek gritted his teeth for a painfully long moment, scent spiking with the fear that always gripped them when they had to split up. Laura felt it too, a sick feeling in her gut that stubbornly insisted it was the last time every time they parted, but she’d had plenty of practice in battling that particular flavor of panic. She swallowed it down as usual, and so did he. Finally he said, “You’ll be right behind?”

“I’ll be there before you even know I’m gone. Promise,” Laura told him, trying to project the sort of calm assurance their mother had always seemed to radiate no matter how dire the situation. She still didn’t think she’d gotten the hang of it, but Derek didn’t object again. With a jerky nod, he scooped a protesting Allison into his arms and stood at attention, waiting for his alpha’s signal to move.

Before she stood, Laura took a deep breath and held it for a moment, focusing on the quick but steady beat of her heart, the rush of blood in her ears, the receding throb of the healing wound in her shoulder. When she let it out again, she tried to visualize breathing out all her fear the way her dad had taught her in their training sessions so many years ago, to let it flow out with the stream of air until there was nothing left behind but determination and control. All her strength meant nothing without control.

When she felt a little less like she might shake out of her skin, Laura pushed herself to her feet and reached for the dumpster again. With an almighty wrench, she ripped the lid off its hinges. A kick sent the body of it screeching down the alley toward the men still shooting at them and Laura heard the shouts as they scattered to avoid it.

Laura charged the other way, out of the alley and into the street, the lid held out in front of her like an enormous rusty shield, and shouted, “ _Go!_ ”

Derek took off, passing behind her just as the new swarm of armed men, all gathered around their roadblock of SUVs, caught sight of them. Before any of them could get a shot off, Laura hauled back and threw the dumpster lid as hard as she could. It struck the men closest to her with a bang and sent them all careening backwards, knocking down the rest like pins in bowling.

Laura didn’t wait to see how many got up again. She turned and she ran, swinging herself up onto the cab of the truck—already dented from Derek’s impact—and using the momentum to carry herself over and onto the roof just in time to see Derek and Allison disappearing over the other side. She followed them down with the sound of one last gunshot echoing in her ears.


End file.
